Untitled

I feel very melodromatic blogging. It's 130 in the morning, and my soul is full. I serve a great God. A magnanomous God. A faithful, wonderful, huge, creative Lord.

It snowed yesterday. It was fitting. The day after Thanksgiving, we went to get our Christmas tree. It is family tradition to drive way out in the country, making my mother and myself sick on the curvy roads to find a tree farm, in search of the perfect Christmas tree.
We did not attain perfection this year. Our normal tree farm is leaving the business, and I think there were a total of 10 trees that had not been cut down on their huge property. It made for an easy decision. We chose the first of two trees we looked at. I'm pretty sure it's a family record for the fastest time from leaving the house to returning. Also! It was the first year I have cut down the tree ALL BY MYSELF! : )
It was raining on our way home, so we elected to not put electric fire-causing lights on a soaked tree, and decided to wait until the next evening. My mother and I strung the lights and hung ornaments while my grandmother sat on the couch in front of our [gas] fireplace and knitted. It began to snow as we were putting the finishing touches.
Perfection is not needed in a tree once it is robed in all its splendor.
I attempted to take a picture, to preserve this idyllic memory, but alas, these things are never photographable.

Imagine, if you will, soft instrumentals in the backgroud. A horn wails tremulously, entering lonesomely before he is joined by a chorus of flutes and saxes. The snapping of metal expanding as flames lick, red-orange, red-orange at their dinner of wood. Pine wafts on the warm air. Cold toes on a slick wooden floor. The overhead lights flick off, a plush leather couch envelopes. The snow falls through a picture-glass door, highlighted by a single bulb outside, naked trees reach. A pine, robed in all its glory, twinkling, twinkling... red, green, soft pink, golden-yellow, winking, winking. A tabby - grayish whitish blackish. Kneading claws, pushing pulling, pushing pulling. Purrrr.

CIS class

So... I am sitting in my CIS class. Nothing too exciting, I'm not paying attention. We're getting our tests back currently... hope I did ok! She curved them, so I'm sure I'm fine.



I am obsessing with igoogle right now. If you have never heard of it, "give it a try" (as my Chinese 101 teacher is constantly saying)


***time passes, now I'm at my computer in my room***



Yay! I got an 82%, AND I have a 104.9% in the class :) That's out of the 735 of 1,000 points available in the class... I am sitting pretty! Thank goodness, becuase in a few of my other classes the story isn't so grand.


Also: I got another opportunity to take my ECO quiz that was due today over again!! This is very exciting becuase I do not have an A in there, and am working vigorously to pull my grade up. Not easy folks, not easy.


Guess what?!? I'm coming home today! :)


I leave you with this.
How much ground could a groundhog hog if a groundhog could hog ground?

Breakfast

I'm actually gonna go eat it this morning!!

I get to go home today, and that is good. I don't think I have ever been this homesick in my life, ever. Not even when I was in Guatemala. Kind of crazy. I want to get out my calendar and figure out how long it's been since I was home, just to see. This makes me nervous for China. 9 months. That's a long time.

I captain an intramural soccer team at MSU. And we won last night. And I scored. And it was awesome. Playoffs... here we come!!!

Breakfast time!!!

I leave you with this.
Ni hao ma.

An essay written a year ago for college entrance

The air felt brisk on her partially exposed legs as she skirted a mud puddle. She smiled and returned a wave to the men working on the construction of a wall. She rounded the finished part of the wall, and the view of ASLESI greeted her. It seemed to amaze her every time. Clay-red dirt meeting the sandal clad feet of natives, babies strapped on mamá’s backs for the trip that was anywhere from 3-20 miles. The pungent odor of humanity dampened her initial smile at those there to receive love and treatment. Ellen handed her a spray bottle and a well-used rag. A stack of chairs to disinfect awaited.
She stood back and surveyed the work, satisfied with the cleanliness of the waiting room chairs. She then moved into the next room. Physical therapy mats and children’s toys greeted her, along with balloons and streamers hanging down from the ceiling. She said in a whisper to herself, in English, “The program seems so amazing, I can’t wait to see it in action.” Emanuel’s goofy grin was enough to pull her out of her reverie and call her to action. She congratulated him on the first-year anniversary of the program and asked him what there was for her to do, this time speaking Spanish. He told her in halting English that she could go into one of the treatment rooms and translate for the parents what was going on between the American doctors as they discussed treatment for the disabled children. Smiling, she reminded him of her limited Spanish vocabulary, then headed to the room to help where she could.
A senior translator was in the room when she arrived. Happy to be off the hook, she sat down to watch the action. Hard-to-diagnose patients were brought in for the experts from the States to observe and offer treatment suggestions. She practiced translating to herself, then listened to the senior translator to see if she was anywhere close, grinning when she wasn’t.
The señora who had started the ministry of ASELSI walked into the room. She prepared the doctors for the next patient by explaining, “We just don’t know what to do with this little guy, he seems to be very sensitive to light, and any time he’s out of his house, all he does is cry until he falls asleep from exhaustion. He won’t respond to any toys at all, and the only time he can be consoled is when he’s in his daddy’s arms.”
I sat in the chairs I had cleaned earlier, waiting to see this family who cared enough about their son to risk embarrassment to come and seek help from virtual strangers. The mother came in first. She was dressed typically for the area, with shoes that hardly fit and a skirt that showed what province she was from. Her older son came with her, his behavior was typical. Her husband came next. You could see the pain in his eyes as he took his youngest hijo – son – off of his back and set him gently down on the mat for the gringos to observe. Immediately, a wailing that tore my heart into thousands of pieces filled the room. The doctors gently tried to console him with plastic toys that added obnoxious noise to the inconsolable howling coming from this child who obviously wasn’t anything like his older brother, who was playing calmly with a balloon in his mother’s lap. I began to gently translate for the mother what the doctors were discussing about her child, which she obviously had a great love for. I asked her if I could pray for her and her family, and as she bowed her head, an indescribable peace covered me, calling me, and drawing my heart forever to that place nestled deep in the mountains of Guatemala.